Check out Bloesem Weekend Read! There are more lovely gift ideas for the coming holiday season. After reading the rest of other bloggers' wish gifts, now I have to think of more people to give them out to. ;-)

Thanks to Irene for inviting me, I had fun choosing the wish gifts. :)

I saw Joanna's lace necklaces at the Nordiska museet last June, and dropped her an email last week when I couldn't find the pictures on her site. She replied, and few days later, she came back with a nice write up about herself and her work. Below is the story.

Joanna Eriksson is a 35-year-old product designer from Sweden. She's been working from a studio located at a small town in Småland, Sweden for about a year now. Previously, she studied Product Design and one term of Glass Design in Sweden. Her work is mainly about furniture and lighting products for public environment, but she also likes working with jewellery.

Her current project is a large sculptural bench for public environment, which is more like an experiment for her. She's trying to stretch her work a little further by challenging herself to work in a much larger scale than she used to. She's also in the midst of creating a lamp for a design competition in Sweden.

The jewellery pieces, exhibited at the Nordiska museet, are some of Joanna's experimental work by using lace, silver and pearls. She really likes to make things that she can produce herself, and jewellery is so much fun to work with, as she said.

To me, all Joanna's work are so aesthetically pleasant to see, making me want to own every piece she made. *too bad my wallet speaks differently*. It'd be hard to forget her work, because with such lovely pieces, they are surely making marks on everybody's mind. Well, at least on mine. :)

Crafts and Design is a non-profit institution, financially backed by The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Iceland. It aims to support, promote, and become a common forum for Icelandic artists, crafters, and designers. The site features works in textile, paper, ceramics, jewellery, and more.

Above are my favorites from the ceramics category. I couldn't possibly list everything here, they have a long list of artists, crafters, and designers there. :) Click here for more talented people of Iceland! Enjoy!

Thank you for readers who had taken part in the NOVICA US$75 gift certificate giveaway. Everybody picked a great item from NOVICA, and there's no right or wrong answer to this contest. So based on random pick, the lucky one is ..... Kate!

Kate is the illustrator of the lovely birds print above. She runs little doodlesblog and etsy store filled with her beautiful drawings.

It works just like a real street/flea market, where indie makers from around the world could rent a virtual table at Poppytalk Handmade for a month period. The first Poppytalk Handmade Street Market will open in early October 2007, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Poppytalk Handmade Street Market is now accepting submissions until September 15, 2007. So if you make handmade goods in the categories of art (from mixed media to photography), accessories (belts & bags), ceramics, crochet & knitting, furniture, holiday themed items, housewares, jewelry, papergoods, toys, and vintage, you don't want to miss this opportunity! Click here for more details. Good Luck!

The course was meant to start in May, so I signed up for the course sometime before that. BUT, due to lack of participants, the course has been postponed for numerous times(!). I've told Ruzana and Su Ling about it, and Ruzana has since signed up.

The NAFA Continuing Education staff told me that they need another 5 students to join in before the "Print Your Fabric" course could have a confirmed start date. Tentatively it is scheduled to start on September 18, 2007.

So please, please, please... residents of Singapore, please help to forward this message to your friends, colleagues, sisters, or brothers who might be interested in taking the course. The course will be taught by Angelynn Tan, Singapore Fashion Designer of the Year 2002. If you'd like to find out more about the course, you could ask for the timetable from NAFA staff.

I talked to Gigi this morning (another participant of the course), and I asked her why the course doesn't seem to be popular here in Singapore. I thought screenprinting is a very fun subject, I said to her. She said, perhaps, because not very many people know about it. Hence, I made this plea. So please, help. Gigi, Ruzana and I hope the course could really start this time, on September 18. *crossed fingers*

Thank you for your help! Have a great weekend!

btw, just a quick reminder, the NOVICA giveaway contest will be closed today, midnight. If you'd like to participate, pls scroll down until you see the giveaway post. Good Luck!

A regular on french magazines, Bruno Evrard products are surely the eye candies of the pages. Here are some pics taken from its 2007 Collections.If you'd like to see more of their latest collections, you might want to visit Bruno Evrard at the upcoming Maison et Objet, Hall 3, stand B12/C111, on September 7 to 11, 2007.

Liz of NOVICA would like to give one lucky imedagoze reader a US$75 gift certificate. I'm sure some of you have heard of NOVICA before. They are known as a bridge between a consumer and artisans from all over the world. At NOVICA, you can find goods made by artisans from Andes, Bali & Java(Yay!), Brazil, India, Mexico, Thailand, and West Africa. NOVICA does provide international shipping, however large or oversized items, including furniture, are only available to customers in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. To win the US$75 gift certificate, all you have to do is to pick one favourite NOVICA item, and list the url on the comments section of this post. This contest will close on Friday, August 24, 2007. The winner will be announced on Monday, August 27, 2007. With spoilt choices from furniture, mirrors, shawls, children items, sculpture, and more, it won't be hard for you to just pick one. ;-) Just make sure that you are contactable, no dead link on your name/username. Happy browsing and good luck!

Dhruti emailed me two weeks ago, asking for my recommendations on places to visit in Singapore, because she's coming here next month. As always, I recommended her to check out ms. spinach's blog. She has a great City Shopping Guide with a list of Singapore's must-visit shops. Plus, I told her my personal favorites places, too. :) After few emails, she told me about her work, and I was awed by her beautiful creations. Dhruti is the owner cum designer of Handmade in Isa. And yes, this is the same Dhruti, who's just recently won decor8's Fabulous Stationery contest! *congrats, Dhruti!* :)Handmade in Isa offers a wide variety of handmade products, from cushions, to bedspreads, to pottery, to stoles, and more. I can easily picture these items at iwannagohome!, Singapore's newly opened home store. Wouldn't you agree? ;-)

It's a spoon, it's a fork, and yes, it's a knife, too! Spork was designed by Joachim Nordwall for Light My Fire, a Swedish outdoor accessories manufacturer. I found Spork when I visited DesignTorget store at Götgatan 31, Stockholm, last June. They placed them at the cashier counters, so you definitely won't miss it. :)At first, I didn't know that Spork was mainly created for people who likes to camp, or hike. When I saw it, I just thought it is such a brilliant product. And being a mom who likes to bring a cutlery set for toddler feeding, it is so convenient to just have them in one single piece, like Spork. So I bought one for my youngest daughter, Tamara, and one for my nephew. And we've been carrying the pink Spork, whenever we bring Tamara out, ever since.

That's one great news to hear on our National Day; the day when Kay of Wallpaper* emailed me about it. As Kay said, "Each month Wallpaper* features an iconic and well-recognised design piece in our Design Classics section - never before have we featured a uniform".

For the September '07 issue, Wallpaper* is featuring our very own Singapore Airlines uniform, designed by Pierre Balmain in 1968, as an enduring classic. And guess what, the article mentioned that each crew gets 4 new uniforms each year. So hold on to your uniforms, ladies. They're not just merely uniforms now. :) Read the complete story here.

Thanks, Kay!

*btw, I remember seeing some shops selling child-size Singapore Airlines uniforms at some tourists spots years ago (before I had kids), but I rarely see them now. Anybody knows where to find them?"

Melissa of K+BB (Kitchen and Bath Business) emailed me sometime ago, asking me to check out kkbonline.com. So I did.

K+BB is a business to business magazine for designers, architects, custom builders, and remodelers, published by Nielsen Business Media, Inc. K+BB magazine features cutting-edge design installations, new products, business developments, industry personalities, best practices and solid market research.

I was excited when I saw TRIBE products via The Home Rejuvenation Blog last week, and noticed they'd be at the MAADout By The Bay last weekend. So I headed down there last Sunday, with one thing in mind. I gotta have that ivory Pretty Catty hanger! must, must, must have!! *crazy obsessive shopper!* :) So finally I shot (with a camera!) my very own Pretty Catty hanger this morning (see pic on top left) to show it off here. :) I bought the silver Purr hook as well, but I'm still debating where to put it, so I don't have its photo yet. But TRIBE has a nice gallery photo of it (shown on top right).

I met Wan Chin of TRIBE at the MAADout By The Bay and chatted a bit. She told me there are three graphic designers behind TRIBE, but she's not one of them. She said she's just helping in marketing and promoting the products. And guess what..., she mentioned design*sponge as a source of inspirations for TRIBE. They saw tons of new and exciting things on d*s and determined to create something on their own. Now they have necklaces, coasters, brooches, hooks, and hangers available on their site. *amazing story, isn't it?* They are currently looking for buyers (retail or wholesale) from all over the world. If you are interested in purchasing any of their items, you could visit their website and email them, OR head down to the next MAAD, happening this Sat and Sun, Aug 4 & 5, 2007, 11am to 7pm at the red dot museum, 28 Maxwell Road, Singapore. Happy Hunting!